


7. burning clothes in the backyard

by piggy09



Series: The Sestre Daily Drabble Project [27]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Gen, Missing Scene, eeeeh soooort ooooooof
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-27
Updated: 2016-07-27
Packaged: 2018-07-27 01:07:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7597378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“The hell?” Sarah says when she steps outside and sees Helena crouched like a gargoyle over the burning remains of their prison clothes. It smells awful; there was plastic somewhere in there, probably. Buttons. Now it’s all just ash.</p><p>…except the hat. For some reason Helena kept the hat.</p>
            </blockquote>





	7. burning clothes in the backyard

**Author's Note:**

> [warning: torture mention]

Sarah takes another shower when they get back to Siobhan’s, just because she can. The last of the desert-dust washes away down the drain and she sighs, long and low. Rests her head against the wall. She hasn’t started crying yet, so she doesn’t think she’s going to – this will just pass, like every other small hurt. It’ll all just go and go until it’s gone.

When she comes out of the shower the door to Siobhan’s back porch is open, just a crack. The air smells like smoke.

“The hell?” Sarah says when she steps outside and sees Helena crouched like a gargoyle over the burning remains of their prison clothes. It smells awful; there was plastic somewhere in there, probably. Buttons. Now it’s all just ash.

…except the hat. For some reason Helena kept the hat.

“There was a fire,” Helena says, “when I left the ranch. Big fire. And then the ranch—” (she shrugs a shoulder) “was gone. Bye bye.” She prods the clothing with a stick. Sarah doesn’t even know where she found the stick.

“Can’t burn the camp, huh,” she says, and sits down next to Helena. She’s gonna smell like smoke for days. Helena doesn’t say anything. She prods a little more viciously at part of her shoe that’s not burning. She _definitely_ shouldn’t be burning those shoes. Sarah doesn’t stop her.

“Mud,” Helena says, “and bricks. And muddy bricks.”

“Didn’t invite me to the party,” Sarah says.

“They poured water,” Helena says, “in my mouth. Over and over. They stopped because of my baby.

“Sarah,” she says, “this was not yours to burn.”

“Pumped me full of someone else’s blood,” Sarah says. “They killed Paul, Helena. Hand me the bloody stick.”

Helena hands her the bloody stick. Sarah jabs viciously at part of a shirt until it sighs into ash. Surprisingly, she feels better.

“Pretty sure I can find some old failed tests,” she says, “if we want to keep this going.”

“I never took tests,” Helena says. “Not on papers. Were they hard.”

“Hated ‘em,” Sarah says, which isn’t an answer. Helena nods wisely, like it was.

“No,” she says. “Learning makes fires smell bad.” Sarah can’t help herself: she snorts a little bit. She never expects Helena to actually be funny. It’s a weird surprise, like opening a Kinder egg and finding the keys to the house you lived in when you were young.

“What do those smell like,” she says, gesturing at the clothes.

Helena shrugs. “Butter.”

“Sweat,” Sarah offers helpfully.

“ _Shit_ ,” Helena says, and then starts giggling.

“Yeah, alright,” Sarah says. “Shit.”

Helena collapses in on herself with an almost-audible _fwump_ , still wheezing to herself in glee. The fire crackles merrily onwards. Siobhan is going to kill one or both of them if she comes back and finds the remnants of a fire here, greasy black smear on her back deck. Sarah doesn’t really care.

“So,” she says, “hat next?”

“ _No_ ,” Helena says, sounding genuinely horrified, and Sarah leans around her and grabs the hat. She plops it on her own head, tips the brim back. It is a really shitty hat. Helena is frantic with her attempts to get it off Sarah and then they’re wrestling for it, Sarah laughing and Helena yelping _no no no give it back_. The fire crackles on in front of them. It does not go out.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please kudos + comment if you enjoyed! :)


End file.
